Read Online Phoenix Heart by Carolyn Nash - Free Book Online

closet, pulling pants, skirts, and
blouses out. “I can’t believe you didn’t pack last night.”
    I pulled the pink sweater over my head, fluffed out my hair
over my shoulders and quickly applied some lipstick. “I thought I’d have plenty
of time this morning.”
    “Yeah, right.” She crossed to the suitcase as Cheryl headed
for the bathroom and my make-up case. I leaned forward to inspect my eye shadow
in the mirror, wet a finger and wiped at a speck of mascara under my eye, and
then stopped, staring at my reflection, at the light brown, long curling hair,
the plain face, the nose that was too broad at the bridge, at the jaw that was
too square and the mouth that was too wide. Then I looked at the room behind
me, at Maggie folding skirts and blouses into my suitcase, at my purse near the
door with the brochures and tickets poking out, and I shivered. “Oh lord, Mags,
do I have to go?”
    Maggie grinned and dropped a blouse down in the case and
smoothed it. “Right, you want me to call the airport and cancel? Okay.” She
started to pick up the phone, but then she got a good look at my face. “Hey.” She
walked over next to me and spoke to my reflection in the mirror. “What is it? This
morning?”
    I shook my head. “No. I don’t know what it is.” I didn’t
either. All of a sudden I was just terrified.
    “Come on,” Maggie said. “Give.”
    “I think I’m just having a critical case of pre-flight
jitters.”
    She put an arm around my shoulders. “I wish you’d change
your mind and let me go with you.”
    When will you learn to keep
your mouth shut, Mel?
    I shrugged her arm off. “We already talked about this.” I
saw the look on her face. “Come on. Don’t do that.”
    “What do you expect?”
    “I expect you to understand.”
    “Well, I don’t! You were going to take Cheryl.”
    “That’s completely different and you know it.”
    “Why? Because I’m an old married lady?”
    “No.”
    “Then what?”
    “Because.”
    “Because what?”
    “Because you’re always looking at me like I’m going to break
into a million pieces, that’s why!”
    “I am not!”
    “Yes, Maggie, you are and you do. I’m a big girl. I can take
care of myself. I don’t need my big sister slash mother to ride herd on me.”
    “I don’t ride herd on you.”
    “Yes you do! You have ever since…” I started gathering my
make-up off the dresser.
    “Ever since you were eight.” Maggie looked a question at my
reflection in the mirror. I turned, dropped the make-up into the suitcase, went
to the closet, and picked up a couple of pairs of shoes.
    “Mel, I’m your sister.”
    I slipped the shoes into a plastic bag and stuffed them down
in the corner of my carry-on bag. “Don’t worry; I’m learning to live with that.”
    “Why won’t you talk to me?”
    I grabbed a bunch of underwear and jammed them down in the
corner of the suitcase. “About what? The upcoming presidential election? Fall
hemlines?”
    “Why won’t you tell me what happened that night?”
    I poked at the clothing in the bag, smoothed it. “You know
what happened.”
    “I know what I saw at the hospital.”
    “Then you know.”
    Maggie grabbed my elbow and pulled me around. “There was
something else. You changed after that night.”
    “Getting the crap beat out of you can do that.”
    She blushed. “I know. I had the same parents, remember? But
I still say there was something different. I wish you’d talk to me.”
    “Ten minutes before I leave on vacation?” I asked. “I don’t
think so.” I pulled my arm from her grasp.
    “Oh, god,” she cried, “you can be such an obstinate jerk!”
    “Well, my older sister helped raise me.” I brought the lid
of the suitcase down, snapped the locks, then turned to Mags and batted my
eyes. “And I want to be just like her.”
    “Melanie.”
    “Maggie.”
    “Hey!” came Cheryl’s cry from the living room. “The limo’s
here.”
    “Oh no! Blast!” I grabbed some tissues,